This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Hair departs, wisdom grows: Bill Taylor

Having just passed — is celebrated still the word? — his 67th birthday, Bill takes stock of insights from another year of getting older and wiser. He discerns that it might be a good time to get a tattoo of rabbits on his head. “They look like hares.”

The sign for a men's room at the Acropolis in Athens. A Taylorism from the last year is "Never pass up a washroom unless you know where the next one is." (ALFRED HOLDEN / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Phew, made it! Another year older and . . . wiser? Whatever. But if I’ve learned just one thing in 67 years, it’s this:

Never panhandle in front of a liquor store. People are SO judgmental.

I didn’t know that when I was 40. I didn’t know much. I thought I knew a lot but at least I had the sense to keep quiet about it. I think.

It never occurred to me to brag that I’d “picked up a little bit of insight over the decades” and get 40 examples published right across the continent.

Silly me. A while ago an American writer did just that, “a holistic health coach, single mother of two… who tries to find the wit and humour in all that stuff that makes up our daily lives.”

Article Continued Below

I won’t say her wit and humour were at the level of “dance like nobody’s watching” or “don’t sweat the small stuff,” but . . . I know, I know, everyone’s a critic.

I only totally agreed with one: “It’s really all about the hair. Find a style you like and stop fussing . . . something that takes less than 10 minutes to do.”

This dawned on me when I was 12, in the days of Brylcreem: “A little dab’ll do ya,” as they used to say. A great big gob would do ya better for the back of your head to achieve the then-requisite appearance of a mallard’s hindquarters.

(We’ll crew-cut the years when my hair was past shoulder-length and I laundered it twice a day with baby shampoo. Took more than 10 minutes.)

Most of the 40 were self-evident: “If you’re bored with your life, change it . . . if you don’t like the opera, don’t go . . . ”

You mean I’ve been dragging myself to The Barber of Seville — and joining in the choruses — when I didn’t have to? Well . . . Figaro!

Then there was: “If you’ve ever harmed someone in any way, find him or her and apologize sincerely. You should be sorry and they should know it.”

No. Don’t. They likely won’t remember and when you remind them, they’ll be mortified and just want you to go away. Sincerity is hard to take, especially when you mean it.

Forty homilies are a lot. If I laid 67 on you and you read as quickly as I do, you’d be here till June.

So let’s make it 1-4 instead of 4-0. Not including, “Don’t flog an idea to death.”

1. Never pass up a washroom unless you know where the next one is. Behind every parked car, wall and tree is someone with an iPhone, a YouTube account and no scruples.

2. When life hands you a lemon, find someone with a bottle of tequila.

3. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. If that makes you want to hide under the bed, go back to No. 2. If necessary, buy your own tequila.

4. Today is also the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. You were right — chances are it’ll suck. Sit tight, nothing is forever.

5. Life crises happen. Resist the temptation to buy a humongous motorcycle or get scalp-implants. A tattoo makes more sense. Perhaps a tattoo of rabbits on your head. From a distance, they’ll look like hares.

6. It’s OK to sometimes to choose quantity over quality.

7. “The eyes are the mirror of the soul,” said novelist Paulo Coelho. Wear dark glasses.

8. A thing of beauty is a joy for about as long as it takes the warranty to run out.

9. If you’re with “Stupid,” what does that say about you?

10. Do it now. Tomorrow never gets here (so you needn’t have worried about it yesterday). Bucket lists are for people who collect buckets.

11. Collecting buckets is a tedious hobby. “Stupid” does it.

12. When you jaywalk, make sure there’s someone between you and the traffic.

13. Growing old and growing up are totally different. Don’t get them mixed up.

14. It really IS all about the hair. And being careful about where you solicit spare change.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com